Do you test for phosphates at all Chris?

Do you remember if any of the lips of your fish were ragged looking or if they were breathing heavily?

I agree with Harvey, try to be systematic about what your doing to try and narrow down what is causing these deaths.

Is it possible some or one of your testkits have gone sour and are giving you false readings?

That could be possible, yes.

No, the fish did not appear to be breathing heavily and their lips looked fine.

I dont have a phosphate test kit, so unfortunately I have not been able to test for it.

Thanks for the suggestions Harvey. I know that its definetly not the clown that is the cause because he is the biggest wuss. Im going to attempt to removed the crabs to the refugium, there is already one that is the same type as the one thats in the tank up there. Actually, come to think of it, could the sally lightfoot kicking the fish cause internal injuries? He actually strikes out quite hard and fast, not in an attempt to catch the fish but simply to hit it.

I think I have a pistol shrimp in the tank aswell. I can hear popping during the day or night. My mantis (seperate tank) makes a much different cracking noise, and I would figure that my engineer gobies would be dead seeing as the sounds come out of the rocks they are living under.

Once I get my RO system up and running, I will be doing more water changes, but I also might tear down the tank and restart from scratch.

Thanks for the help and suggestions everyone!

Chris

Re: Yellow Tang Help!
 

May I make one more suggestion?
Whether it's related to your problems, or not, is hard to say, but...20 hermit crabs in a, what is it?, 75g?, seems like alot to me. IMHO.
Hermits eat algae. Yellow Tangs eat algae. The more hermits you have, the more competition the YT has (had), and the less algae there is (was) for it to have had access to eat.
I'd say, tone down the hermit crab population.
I have six in my 135g and I consider that enough.

JMO and cheers,

Alrighty, thanks for the suggestion!

I know I have yet to have any algae problems, besides cyano that is(which seems to hit like plague for the first few months and then dissapears) so maybe I will do so, and remove some of the hermits. I have a some snails aswell, probably around 10-15.

I plan on setting up another tank or two anyways, so they can go in those.

There will still some spots in the tank where he could much at visible algae at will(ie: my fuge output on the outside of it) and part of the glass and one rock, I also gave him some cheato every once in awhile and fed him the nori but would the hermits really have that much of an effect even if the tang was supplemented? Im not dissagreeing with what you said, as it does make sense, im just surprised seeing as I often see people with tanks so algae free its hard to believe and they have tangs, several infact.

Thanks again!

Chris

That's why they are algae free. Because the Tangs have/are eating it.
The snails you also have, are algae consumers.
Plus, you have a 'fuge, which will compete with algae growth in your main tank.

As for whether or not less hermits would make a difference....to be honest, I don't know, but my instinct says it would. (I'm pretty new to this game myself). Not only for more available food for the Tang, but also just to decrease your bio-load. I know you say your water parameters are okay, but still, I think your tank is overstocked. Especially now, in light of the snail population. All living organisms in any aquarium are going to contribute to the bio-load.

Again, hard to say if any of this is related to your immediate concerns and I do not mean to steer your thread away from that. Just something to consider, is all. (Decreasing your livestock level).

Cheers, and good luck, :smile:

Chris,

When I pop over today I will lend you my phosphate test and some of the other test kits for the weekend if you'd like.

Sorry It didnt work out Catherine! Sent you a PM.

Johnny, Thanks for the tips.

I have put a cap on animal stock..........to my mom lol. She goes out and buys a fish on occasion, or 3 once. Lol. I will definetly reduce the bioload in my tank. Im probably going to set it to 5 fish, maybe 6. And also the most of the hermits will come out, some of the snails too.

Thanks for the tips!

Chris

Another thing to note(thanks Catherine and Kevin!) is that my clam is always opened very nicely and has yet to 'complain', per say, about the water params. Also, all the other corals appear just as happy as usual! The fish also see to swim fine and dont look stressed at all. I have simply lost them just like that. The last one to die, I did not see it act the way the others did, but I didnt see it do much at all. It was fine one evening when the lights went off, the next evening within 24hrs it was dead.

Thanks for any/all the help!

Chris